Does anyone else hate those wide angle lens photos?

Wig

I hate the use of wide angle lens on photos on EA websites..

I saw what I thought was a lovely house with big rooms. When I got to the viewing I found the big rooms were infact normal size, and therefore nothing special.

The use of these photos decieves the buyer, so the onoly natural reaction when arriving at the house is DISAPPOINTMENT.

Not the best way to make a sale now is it?

Tigsteroonie

I'd agree. My parents recently had EA round, and they sent me a link to the photos before anything was uploaded. I was shocked at how wide it made some of the rooms seem - narrow kitchen suddenly spacious, downstairs cloakroom seemed huge ...

Hedgehog99

Foreign buyers not even viewing in person could be fooled though - an't won't care on the end because they'll be letting it out or leaving it empty.

Great!

I'd only ever look at the photos for condition, gremlins and locations of windows, doors & plumbing connections. I'd go by the stated measurements (with a pinch of salt) for room sizes.

Cocora

The best you can do is to look at the floorplan, to have a realistic idea of the size of each room.

kinger101

If they don't use a wide angle lens, the photos will show less then half the room. Would you visit a car showroom because you'd seen the the door and tyres? I'm sure most people are aware that a 1000 sq. ft 3 bedroom semi isn't going to be a tardis, and can figure this out from the floor plan.

Davesnave

You'd have reason to be 'disappointed' if the agent didn't provide a floor plan or reasonably accurate measurements of the rooms before you viewed.

Would you consider showing us the Rightmove link, so that we can judge for ourselves?

moneyistooshorttomention

I wouldn't go so far as to use the word "hate". I dislike them personally - as I find them deceptive (and probably deliberately designed to be so).

Any time I suspect they've been used, then I check out visually how wide something standard (eg a back door) looks and if that looks rather wider than I would expect it to = I decide it must be a wide-angle lens that got used.

The EA I used to sell my last house said they deliberately DONT use them - as otherwise viewers turn up viewing a house and are disappointed that its smaller than it looks and they think its a waste of everyones time for that to happen.

Obviously anyone with any sense will check out the room sizes too before going to view a property - but we do get our initial impression of size of place by the fact that we will all go to the photos first for a looksee at what its like and there are EA's that still only put room measurements in one way (ie only feet or only metres) and that leaves half the population not able to instantly tell how big the rooms are because its the "wrong" measurement for them personally. Me - I look for the sizes in feet and inches and understand instantly what the size of a room will be accordingly (metres only and I struggle to "translate" and start thinking uncharitable things about the EA the vendor has chosen).

[Deleted User]

As much as I believe estate agents to be crooks, even I'll concede that they don't use wide angled photos to deceive anyone, it's because if they don't use a wide angle lens you wouldn't be able to see half the room.

moneyistooshorttomention

[Deleted User] wrote:

As much as I believe estate agents to be crooks, even I'll concede that they don't use wide angled photos to deceive anyone, it's because if they don't use a wide angle lens you wouldn't be able to see half the room.

They could always take an extra photo (ie of the other bit of room).

My last house was a typical 2 bed Victorian terrace (ie most rooms were small). What the EA did was to stand in the door and take the photos and, as I recall, there was only one room that had just one photo and that photo didn't show all the room.

DigForVictory

Our EA didn't use a wide angle lens, but nearly every other trick from the Hollywood era appeared in play. Very judicious lighting, strategic props, I never saw the vaseline on the lens but ye gods...
The camera never lies. It can be persuaded to record some stonking misperceptions however!

pinkteapot

Extreme wide angle is bad - hugely distorts the room. But a wide angle lens used sensibly actually shows the room far more realistically than a standard lens, which can't get much of the room in shot. There's a balance. Well taken slightly wider angle photos sell a house far better than standard lens photos. Agents who know nothing about photography and go nuts with the 10mm lens need a slap.

Example of a house on with two agents:

Poor photos: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-52644539.html?premiumA=true
Decent photos: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-51015589.html

The lounge looks so much better with the second agent. It's not exaggerated - the description says it's 11'6 wide which isn't a bad size in an average sized house. Yes, the vendor has ludicrously over-sized sofas, but the second agent has still made the lounge look considerably less cramped.